Opinions

Often when old rivals seek to heal rifts, the venture is bittersweet. Giving up grudges requires giving up old ground and old assumptions. Forging new friendships entails accepting the world as it is, not as some have longed for it to be.

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The English-language monthly Tibetan Review has expressed misgivings about Chinese intentions in the current Sino-Tibetan contact saying China may be using it to merely blunt international criticism.

At first glance, the Indian prime minister seems endowed with an internationally unmatched ability to fundamentally transform a relationship with an adversarial state by paying one visit.

Born in Sin." These were the words used by Acharya Kripalani to describe the famous Panchsheel Agreement when it was presented to the Indian Parliament by India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in May 1954.

Lately, there has been some forward movement in India-China relations. Indeed, they have come a long way since 1998 when New Delhi justified its nuclear tests, citing a security threat from China. India no longer maintains this view.

Seeking to placate longtime rival China, India has subtly shifted its stand on Tibet in a way to clearly recognize the Chinese annexation of "the roof of the world," delighting Beijing but raising questions about New Delhi's diplomatic game-plan and spurring concern among Tibetan exiles.

India and China vaulted over decades of mutual suspicion and hostility through their historic joint declarations signed in Beijing recently, but may have in the process sealed the cause of Tibetan independence forever.

Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee's visit to China has once again brought Tibet on to the centrestage of Asian politics. On the one hand, the Chinese are claiming to have succeeded in getting India to recognise

The tremendous potential for economic co-operation with China, if realised, will impact positively on the political ties between the two countries. This underplayed aspect of the Vajpayee visit may yet prove to be the catalyst